Deformation of textural characteristics and sedimentology along micro-tidal estuarine beaches

Abstract

Deformation in the textural characteristics of three selected beaches (Pavinkurve, Kundapura and Padukare) along Karnataka shoreline, west coast of India was examined. Study showed the beaches are significantly composed of unimodal to bimodal, fine to medium sand, moderately well sorted to moderately sorted, positive to negative skewed, and platykurtic to leptokurtic sediments. Spatio-temporal variation of mean grain size showed significant influence of breaking waves on beach sediments whereas sorting characteristics exhibited the impact of alongshore current on the intertidal sedimentary environment. Also very fine sands at gentle beach slope and very coarse sands at steeper slope exhibits the role of beach morphology on foreshore surface grains. The slow process of sediment removal/accumulation reveals a marginal variation in skewness and kurtosis characteristic and also exhibits a poor correlation in textural characteristics.